R10 2952

Thank you for bringing this up. Some people want to talk about the statistics for COVID deaths, but seemingly none of the other circumstances. To them I say- what about the people dying on the street of starvation due to losing their jobs? What about the unemployed who committed suicide? And the small business owners who did the same? What about the people who died because medical attention was diverted away from their physical ailments in the name of focusing on coronavirus? That last scenario has happened often enough that several close friends are now mourning relatives who died of non-COVID related causes and complications, because they couldn't get the attention they need. Because they didn't have coronavirus, ironically enough. At what point does it become okay to ignore everything else? And at what point does the cure become worse than the illness itself? Not saying the Republicans in Redneckistan are doing the right thing, but I am saying that two kinds of wrongs do not make one kind of right. There has to be a middle ground somewhere in all of this. I'm sure if Cuomo wants, he can move stuff back to Phase 1; re-declare an emergency or whatever. But remember folks, he's not going to have to worry about putting food on his family's table. Well, it's a democracy, so.... The union's just trying to protect their members' interests; I don't think anyone sensible will question that. Unfortunately, I can see the Post, the News, and other tabloids trying to spin this against the TWU if the MTA comes up short on other cars. Interesting to see how it will play out I guess.

Could be; the mid '60s thru early '80s were as bad a time for the GCT commuter lines as they were for the subways. The trains operated by New York Central, Penn Central, and then Conrail were abysmal. And yeah, Grand Central itself really didn't improve until after 1995. I remember the one time I took the BxM4C back in 2011, there was just me and two other people getting off at White Plains. And this was rush-hour...

You hit the nail on the head. Unfortunately, this has been the City DOT's modus operandi since at least the Bloomberg (if not latter-day Guiliani) era. The mentality has become entrenched and only a seismic shift in planning policy will change it.

The politicians are just doing what they normally do; offering half-hearted, patronizing, token gestures in the hope that people will be distracted from the real issues. As if renaming a subway station is really going to stop all those cops who think they're above the law and treat communities of color like second-class citizens.

A setup like the above would actually make sense- more so than the current setup, anyway. As to the Broadway Line, maybe they won't axe the , but I could certainly see the rush-hour trips to 96th Street getting cut. Which is fine by me; the routing gymnastics that the MTA started engaging in with the Second Avenue Line were poorly conceived from the get-go. Just improve service and call it a day.

Exactly- MTA telling BxM1/2 riders to take the Bx10 is basically them telling the riders to go f-ck themselves.

Either way, anything that riders can reasonably interpret as a service cut will not go over well. For them, cutting skip-stop service east of Broadway Junction will be a non-starter unless the MTA throws something in to sweeten the deal (such as peak express service west of the Junction).

Exactly; never heard of any problems with freight on Raritan, either. Makes me question their priorities- the money could be better spent restoring passenger service on the Susquehanna Line, or the Lackawanna Cutoff..

Privatization doesn't always work- just take a look at the U.K. The government has been gradually re-nationalizing parts of the network because the private companies can't get their shit together. In fact a majority of people over there support public ownership of the railways, and the government has temporarily assumed responsibility for rail transport on account of the whole coronavirus situation: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-51298820 https://news.sky.com/story/railways-sky-poll-shows-majority-backs-renationalising-network-11860684 https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/06/24/grant-shapps-set-centralise-control-britains-railways/ The issue is not that New York's subways and buses are publicly managed; it's that they are poorly managed. These are two completely different things. Public ownership can be very effective and quite efficient when managed by competent people and not bogged down by local/regional machine politics- Austria, Denmark and Sweden are good examples of this. The railways in Yugoslavia and East Germany were also fairly decent even though they had outdated infrastructure and rolling stock- they made good with what they had. The trains and buses in NY would not suck as much as they do if the politicians didn't suck. A competent government, like those that exist in other parts of the world, would have no problem managing the system, whether it be run under the umbrella of the MTA, the DOT, NASA, or whatever. But as long as a majority of the voters continue to re-elect a**holes like Cuomo and deBlasio, then the people of NY get exactly what they deserve.

To answer OP's question: if Cuomo wants to end late-night service in an underhanded, behind-the-scenes, non-transparent way, then there is no surprise there. At all. The ongoing situation gives him exactly the kind of political cover he needs to be able to get away with it.

Yeah, we can probably kiss the R262s, Phase 3, and Penn Station Access goodbye at this point...

To be honest, you'll have a much better chance of having this question answered if moved to the Transit Employment sub-forum.

OP going out of his way to film private citizens driving their cars at close range will most definitely come across as creepy, and will likely get him jumped by them, especially if he ends up recording some gangbanger's pimpmobile or something...

No, there was talk that this was an actual MTA plan- not a railfan suggestion. Are you sure they're actually bolting them? The reason I'm skeptical is because them doing so would be a major liability issue, on several fronts (emergency egress, disabled access, people with large/bulky items).

Low expectations? How much can we really expect from an agency that can't even give station platforms a decent power-wash? Has taken 6 decades to come around to the idea of redesigning bus routes to be more efficient? Ordered hi-tech subway cars in the '70s but couldn't even keep the existing fleet clean and properly maintained? The only surprise from the bozos in TA management is when they manage to get something done right.

Maybe not going all the way down Avenue C, but I could certainly see a small PATH branch along 8th/SaintMark's terminating at Tompkins Square; would give PATH riders a third terminal in the city, anyway.

It was more a point I was making about the Eastern Division in general; the Canarsie alignment west of Myrtle and the Jamaica alignment east of Broadway Junction leave a lot to be desired, regardless of train length.

Unless they plan to have the run overnight on 63rd Street, I don't see the sense of this swap. Why is the MTA even considering a plan that would still require the to stay on 63rd for late nights and weekends? It will just create confusion for the riders.

That's an entirely reasonable assumption. Besides, even if the R42s did come back, I don't see what the point would be of having them on the /. Maybe they'd make sense as rush hour 10-car trains on the (free up 40-50 more R32s for East New York to mitigate the air-conditioning issues), otherwise there's probably not much sense in it..

What's the point in endless speculation? Why worry? Why not wait until Monday, see what happens then?

I remember the Redbirds on the A Division had busted air-conditioning all the time; it was practically a given in the late-'90s/early-2000s that at least one car in the train was hot (the other thing that sucked were those giant poles they installed to support the A/C units- way too close to the seats and too wide to hold on to, anyway). Phase II R32s also had A/C problems I recall- riding the in the summer was always a crapshoot back then. Only other hot cars I've experienced in the last 15 years or so have been R46s, R62As, and one R40. It's like Wheel of Fortune in that regard I guess...

THIS.

I have a very hard time believing that. Could Cuomo possibly be pulling strings behind the scenes already?

That image right there shows how much worse of an idea the baloney springs are compared to pantograph gates.